Category: process

The theatre work group (actual name TBC) I’m a member of has been workshopping ideas over the past couple of months for a new theatre project to be presented in 2018-2019. Each fortnight a different member of the group has run a session incorporating texts and activities which benefit the development of ideas and concepts for the eventual project. A couple of weeks ago I ran a sound-based session focussing primarily on the work of Alvin Lucier; specifically a performance work called Vespers (1968) where performers navigated themselves in a space (either in the dark or blindfolded) using sound devices to map out the space. Whilst our session performances in the video below are not entirely faithful to the original Vespers score (the lack of clicking Sondols diminishing the echolocative emphasis of the work), I would regard these performances as broad interpretations of Vespers, using the performance format of the workas a point of departure for exploring aspects of group listening, sensory depreviation, acoustical awareness and exploration of space.

An early Sunday afternoon in Wirrabara. My ears, still acclimatising to the quiet of the town following the Producers Market catch whatever comes into relief (however brief): the rustle of trees lining the main street pavement, the faint rumble of a car engine or distant machinery and the occasional twitter of birds. In spite of these sounds – both tangible and hidden – the overall impression of this place is a strangely uneasy, empty quiet.

Main street in Normanville – January 2008.

I’m accustomed to this type of quiet. My hometown of Normanville on the Fleurieu Peninsula, which in spite of being more populous and fitfully vibrant during the warmer months, is partial to the same kind of mid-to-late afternoon lull. Since I’ve spent most of my adult life living in the city, it’s occasionally surprising to become enveloped by this quiet, whilst acutely aware one’s own presence (or agency) – marked out by the sound of shoes on gravel or the rustle of clothes. This is maybe one reason why we find streets, buildings and vehicles with a perceived human absence so disconcerting. Within this environment one becomes so much more aware of their own presence.

The Wirrabara Town Hall is rarely used these days. It is split into two main spaces – the original hall, built sometime in the early 20th Century and a small recreation hall with adjoining kitchen probably constructed sometime in the 1960’s. Within the smaller hall, there are shafts of golden sunlight spreading across the floor but the expected warmth is virtually non-existent. It is incredibly cold in this space, the adjoining foyer and larger hall. Within these cold, enclosed spaces and shut off from the empty main street of Wirrabara, it feels as though as I am a little further removed from the world.

Wirrabara Town Hall – main hall space. July 2016.

A border of gold paint frames the stage of the main hall and deep blue and black velveteen curtains drape across the stage. Florescent lights and ceiling fans are suspended from a ceiling consisting of beautiful pressed tin panels. To the rear of the hall above the main doors is an elevated projection room. Overall, the hall is in immaculate condition – giving an impression that it’s hardly been used in a very long time. There are some indications that the hall may have been used recently – such as a box of children’s toys and books to the rear of the hall, however this is certainly an anomaly. Behind the curtains of the stage is an old piano (recently retuned – another indicator of recent visitors?), upon lifting the piano’s lid I notice its prominently chipped keys suggesting plenty of use over the years.

To the rear of the stage area is a large overhead speaker protruding from the rear wall and appearing to be fixed to a canvas petition. It’s a peculiar looking thing – a huge magnet and voice coil enclosed in a solid wooden box with a square shaped diaphragm. The wooden box has a sticker on it indicating that the speaker was purchased from ‘Benbow Amusements’ with ‘Gladstone’ written below (Gladstone is a town about 30km south of Wirrabara). It’s difficult to place the vintage of such a strange looking loudspeaker, though the 1940’s and 50’s come to mind.

I make a sound recording of the main Town Hall space, positioning the hand-held device on the lectern so as to capture the ambience of the space from the stage. The discrete buzz of fluorescent lights provide a hushed continuum as incidental sounds from the building and outer periphery materialise: the creak of the roof in the sun, a whisper of wind, the muffled trill of a magpie, a passing vehicle, an unidentifiable murmur, a rustle of trees.

A work which was developed over 2014-15 and recorded in April 2015 has now been released on Bandcamp as part of the Maurilia Sound Studio series. The work was composed using Max/MSP, a vocoder and a couple of effects modules.

The fourth volume of the Maurilia Sound Studio series is now available. “Goyder’s Line” – recorded in April 2015 – is a composition for Max/MSP, vocoder and effects modules. For its structure and form, the work references the geographical boundary (or isopleth) pioneered by George Goyder in the mid-1880’s to denote and determine patterns of rainfall in South Australia. The work’s sonic character (derived from sawtooth waves and the feedback of a Moog MF-108M module) results in a continuous drone; consisting of rich, wavering harmonic tones and textures which are intended to be evocative of the colours, climate, topography and relative stillness of the landscapes that Goyder’s Line passes through.

From my notebook:9:25am – 10:25amRecorder positioned with L (north), R (south) Town Hall bells chime at 9:30am, and periodically every 15 mins. Lots of sporadic traffic on Pirie Street (trucks, rattling engines) Construction to building to the south. Frequent sounds of drilling and hammering. Becomes less frequent in the final 15 mins of recording. First tram passes on King William Street at 9:47am Nice organ harmonies at 9:53am Nice low resonances at 10:07am Patter of leaves blowing at either end of walkthrough

I obtained a Slinky over the weekend and decided to test it out as a sound generator by clamping a piezo transducer at one end and tapping my fingers at the other end as an impulse. As you can see in the video it’s a pretty interesting result.

I also experimented with sending various signals through the Slinky using another piezo transducer clamped to the top, operating a bit like a crude spring reverb unit. The impulses – square and sawtooth waves; recordings of voices and instruments all sounded quite reverberant with (in given cases) slight instances of frequency modulation. (not included in the video)